


Lest faith turn to despair - Notes

by If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young



Series: Lest faith turn to despair [1]
Category: Young Americans (TV)
Genre: Boarding School, Criticism, Drama, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, Multi, Poetry, Pop Culture, Rawley Academy, Rebirth/rejuvenation, Sexual Content, Surreal, Teen Romance, True Love, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-11-20
Updated: 2000-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 11,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young/pseuds/If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848">Lest faith turn to despair</a></em> is a critical appreciation, in the form of a fanfiction sequel, of Steven Antin’s <em>Young Americans</em> (Columbia TriStar & Mandalay Television for The WB network, 2000), a dramatic essay in philosophy of love.</p>
<p><strong>Synopsis</strong>:  The original drama’s “true love” story affects that drama’s other characters.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848">Lest faith turn to despair</a></em> is a drama in five acts, plus <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123/chapters/3025873">prologue</a>, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438/chapters/3034030">intermezzo</a>, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567/chapters/3035860">envoi</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208">notes</a>.  Each act, like the intermezzo, covers one of six consecutive days around the Thanksgiving following the original drama.  Due to its length, it is posted on <em>Archive of Our Own</em> as a series of six works, with the notes as a separate work.</p>
<p>All sexually active characters are above the legal age of consent in the setting place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Frontispiece

These Notes are for reference. A first reading of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , should begin with [Act I](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123), including the [prologue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123/chapters/3025873). However, an online reader may find it helpful to keep these notes open in a separate tab or window while reading the five acts of this drama.

The original drama,  _Young Americans_ , may be viewed online [here](http://www.youtube.com/user/IckyGrub).  Antin’s public comments on it may be read [here](https://sites.google.com/site/rawleyrevisited/antin-on-ya).

 

 

Love is strong as death, passion unyielding as the grave;

the flashes thereof are of fire, a very flame of the Lord.

– _Song of Song_ s 8:6

 

To be and to be seen to be thankful;

this is truly not only the greatest of the virtues,

but also the mother of all the rest.

– Cicero, _Pro Plancio_ xxxiii.

 

Stranger, dreams are very curious and unaccountable things, and they do not always come true.

There are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies proceed;

one is of horn, the other of ivory. Those that come through the gate of ivory are fatuous,

but those from the gate of horn mean something.

– Penelope to the disguised Odysseus, _Odyssey_ xix

 

*       *       *


	2. Series Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Links to other parts of the drama, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , which, due to its length, is published on _Archive of Our Own_ as a series.

**[Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848) Contents** :

[Notes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208): setting; _dramatis personae_ ; genre; allusions; obscenity; chronology.

[Prologue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123/chapters/3025873)

[Act I - Tuesday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123)

[Act II - Wednesday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222)

[Act III - Thanksgiving Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438309)

[Intermezzo - Friday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438/chapters/3034030)

[Act IV - Saturday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438)

[Act V - Sunday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567)

[Envoi](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567/chapters/3035860)

 

Each act of this drama has its own scene-specific table of contents.

These notes also have their own section-specific table of contents, in the next chapter of this work.

 

Photo above is of Rawley Academy for Boys (Tyrconnell estate, Towson, Maryland), from episode 1 of _Young Americans_.

 

*       *       *


	3. Contents of the Notes (that is, of this work)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Provides links to the sections of the Notes to the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848);_ each section of the Notes is a chapter of this work.
> 
> To facilitate reference, readers may wish to hold this work, the Notes, open to this page on a separate Internet browser tab, while reading other works in the series.

**Contents of Notes**

 [Chapter 4 - Setting: Place](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023035)

[Chapter 5 - Setting: Time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023200)

[Chapter 6 - Setting: Institutions](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023257)

[Chapter 7 - Setting: The Flemings' House](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023485)

[Chapter 8 - Setting: Finn's Suite](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023563)

 

[Chapter 9 - _Dramatis personae_ : Major characters, in order of appearance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023599)

[Chapter 10 - _Dramatis personae_ : Other characters, in order of appearance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023743)

 

[Chapter 11 - Genre](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023824)

 [Chapter 12 - Works, allusions to which are not fully explicated in the script](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3024010)

[Chapter 13 - Obscenity: violence, profanity and sexual content](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3024070)

[Chapter 14 - Chronology](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3024217)

 

Photo above is of the Rawley Academy junior division boys rowing crew, from episode 5 of _Young Americans_.

From right to left: Finn, coach (Ed Quinn); Scout Calhoun, six (Mark Famigietti); Will Krudski, seven (Rodney Scott);

Jake Pratt, coxswain (Katherine Moennig); Hamilton Fleming, stroke, holding trophy (Ian Somerhalder); and five extras. 

 

*       *       *


	4. Setting: Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Description of the locations in which the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , is set.

**Setting:  Place**

Most scenes are set in New Rawley, a fictional town in rural Massachusetts. (In episode 4 of _Young Americans_ , BELLA says that CHARLIE has gone to Boston to renew his business license.) New Rawley is home to Rawley Academy, a small, old, stunningly beautiful elite prep school separated from the town by Lake Rawley. A boarding school (except for faculty children), Rawley has separate schools for boys and girls, located on opposite sides of an inlet in the lake.

Some early scenes are set in Grottlesex, Massachusetts, a fictional town 50 miles from New Rawley. Grottlesex is home to the coeducational [Grottlesex School](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Grottlesex).

  * The town of Carson - repeatedly mentioned although no scenes are set there - is equally fictional, and inherited from the original drama; it is about 40 miles from New Rawley.


  * Deerbrook, the middle school that SCOUT attended, also is fictional. The original drama's only mention of it, in episode 4, makes clear that it's a boarding school: SCOUT says a student used to wet his bed there. Deerbrook seems likely to allude to the (real) Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, one of the few boarding schools in New England for middle-schoolers. Consequently, the description of Deerbrook in Act V, scene 6 of this sequel - as an all-boys' school that offers only grades six through nine - is based on Eaglebrook.



All other towns, cities or schools mentioned in this sequel are real.

  * Boston Latin, where this sequel imagines that HAMILTON attended middle school, offered girls' crew but no boys' crew before 2015. This is consistent with HAMILTON's middle-school interest in learning to row sweep from Rawley students during weekends home from school. The possibility of occasional additional practice with a Boston Latin girl in a coxless pair on the Charles is by no means excluded.



The Intermezzo is set in Boston and Cambridge.

The settings of most scenes are shown in the original drama. Not shown in it are scene-settings in Grottlesex, on New Rawley’s town common, at the New Rawley Inn, at the Flemings’ house (the Rawley DEAN’s residence), in the dining and living rooms of the Banks’ home above CHARLIE’s filling station, inside Rawley Girls’, in the living room of FINN’s suite, at New Rawley’s General Store Café (inspired by the Main Streets Market and Cafe in Concord, Massachusetts), and in a Rawley guest cottage. The DEAN’s office, FINN’s suite, and GRACE Banks’ bedroom are shown only cursorily and partially in the original drama.

In this sequel, settings amply shown in the original drama tend to be described more sparsely than others. The exception is CHARLIE's filling station, at which dozens of scenes in the original drama are set.  In the original drama, no one ever mentions the surreally anomalous antiquity of the 1920's-style canopy, the 1930's Coke machine, the late-1940s gas pumps, the 1950-vintage pickup trucks, the 1950's air pump, the Cokes in glass bottles, or the "full service" character of the filling station. However, If one fails to perceive the antiquity of those props, or that they are conspicuously anomalous anachronisms in a drama ostensibly set in the year 2000, then one also fails to understand that they are surreal and symbolic. Consequently, this sequel describes the filling station in detail,

Detailed descriptions of [the Flemings’ house](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023485) and of [FINN’s suite](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208/chapters/3023563), in each of which multiple scenes are set, are included in these setting notes.

*       *       *


	5. Setting:  Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Description of the times in which the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , is set.

**Setting:  Time**

The time setting of the original drama is ambiguous.

_Young Americans_ is ostensibly set in the summer of 2000, when it was first aired: large blue banners reading “Summer 2000” hang from the exterior of the main building of Rawley Academy for Boys, and WILL Krudski's narrating voice-overs at the start and end of each episode speak in the present tense of apparently present events. However, some of those events, including the entire JAKE-HAMILTON story-line, are outside WILL's present awareness. Moreover, WILL's final narrating voice-over, at the end of the last episode, switches tense from present to past, speaking of the drama's events as something that happened long ago. 

Furthermore, the original drama includes [anachronisms](https://plus.google.com/photos/102949842470779984078/albums/6003449689417040401) that date from the 1970s or earlier, including the gender-segregation of Rawley Academy, the “full-service” character of CHARLIE Banks’ filling station, and diverse allusions to events and pop culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The time setting is made even more ambiguous by the presence, chiefly at the Banks’ filling station, of architecture, equipment, and vehicles dating from the 1920’s to 1950’s.  These conspicuously anomalous anachronisms, references to dreams in dialogue and in WILL’s narrating voice-overs, and allusions to _The Wizard of Oz_ including two soundtrack uses of “Over the Rainbow,” are among the original drama’s features that suggest it is WILL’s dream of reliving his youth in a morally perfecting way, and that anyone, no matter how old, can join him in “going to Rawley.”

This ambiguity, and these anachronisms, are retained from the original drama. This sequel, while ostensibly set three and a half months after the end of the original drama, is also set in the present – last or next Thanksgiving, as you may prefer. At Rawley it is always the present, and in this sequel WILL is no longer the only dreamer.

Calendars, clocks and watches are nearly absent from the original drama. No calendar is ever shown, and no specific date is ever given. A watch or clock occurs only twice, introduced either by the irresponsible GRACE Banks (episode 4) or by the diabolical Forrest RYDER (episode 7), in context of imminent time deadlines for off-campus events. Venues that normally feature clocks – the boys’ school entryway, classrooms, the gas station office, the diner – have none. Although elite New England prep schools tend to have bell chimes that peal every quarter-hour, Rawley has none. The paucity of timepieces is almost as conspicuous an anomaly as the ubiquity of institutional, cultural and physical anachronisms. Like WILL’s narrative comments about time, and the time game that SCOUT and BELLA play, these features of the original drama help to convey that it is a rejuvenating dream.

In this sequel – which, being exegetic, states in the prologue that the drama is a dream – there is no need to convey that indirectly by muddling time. Consequently, Rawley has bell chimes and timepieces and references to specific dates and times occur with normal frequency. Indeed, much of the plot centers on calendar-making. Similarly, the institutional and physical anachronisms, although retained, are “explained” – such “explanations” being deliberately tongue-in-cheek, part of the sequel but not part of the exegesis of the original drama.  The only valid "explanation" for the plethora of conspicuously anomalous anachronisms in _Young Americans_ is that they serve, by muddling the time setting, to help convey to the viewer that the drama is a dream.

*       *       *


	6. Setting:  Institutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes aspects of the institutions at which the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , is set.

**Setting: Institutions**

The institutional setting of _Young Americans_ deviates from realism in several respects that this sequel either discards, modifies, or owes readers an explanation for retaining:

_Summer session_ : No preppy worthy of his topsiders would voluntarily summer at school rather on Martha’s Vineyard, at Southampton, or in Europe. Consequently, elite New England prep schools, if they have summer sessions at all, tend, during them, to educate not their own students – save, in some cases, for incoming students – but rather students from lesser schools. This sequel supposes that Rawley Academy’s summer session, the setting of the original drama, is required or highly recommended for incoming first-years but lightly attended by upperclass Rawely students, and open to guest students from public (state) schools.

_School terms_ : Although the academic calendars of New England prep schools generally contain three ten-week-long terms (fall, winter and spring), the original drama speaks of Rawley having “semesters,” like most U.S. public (state) schools. In this sequel, Rawley hews to the usual prep school calendar of three terms – including a week-and-a-half-long Thanksgiving break between fall and winter terms – plus its summer session.

_Class designations_ : In the original drama, Rawley student classes are called freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. That is public (state) school terminology not widely used at private New England prep schools. In this sequel, they are called first-years, second-years, _etc_.

_Ages and grades_ : There are no three-year prep schools in New England, and Rawley seems in the original drama to be a four-year school – first-years at Rawley repeatedly are called “freshmen,” not “sophomores” (episodes 3 and 4). However, first-year students at Rawley (and at Edmund High) in the original drama are 15 or 16 years old, rather than 14 or 15 – the usual age for first-years at a four-year prep school or high school in the USA - apparently because the original drama wants characters new to Rawley and to one another, but old enough to be seriously and responsibly romantic. This sequel, perforce, retains this anomaly, counterfactually showing a four-year prep school at which nearly all first-year students are, by Thanksgiving, 16 years old. Save in that the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16, it matters little, since the kids look years and act decades older than 16 – part of the original drama’s conspicuous disdain for realism.

_Off-campus time_. Few if any New England prep schools allow boarding students, during a regular school term, the freedom to leave campus that Rawley students seem to enjoy during summer session in the original drama. RYDER and Caroline somehow spend ten days vacationing in Italy while at least one of Caroline's courses continues, with no apparent consequence save that Caroline requires tutoring in that course when she returns. SCOUT and WILL spend much of their screen time in town - working at a diner, playing sports, visiting friends, attending movies and parties - apparently subject only to requirements to show up for classes and rowing practice. Unrealistically, they are never seen to get permission and sign in and out for every departure from campus, or to be subjected to mandatory study and sleeping hours and attendance at meals. This sequel finesses some of these problems by being set during Thanksgiving break at the end of fall term. Not too unrealistically, some students leave a day or two before term's end by taking exams early. Scout's and Will's diner jobs, central to the original drama, are perforce retained, perhaps not too unrealistically given that they enhance town-gown relations. And Halloween is pictured as having been a "free night" - a concession to the inevitable. Nevertheless, this sequel reflects the reality that what the original drama calls "high school without parents" tends to be more restrictive of students' time and movement than high school with parents.

  * The inter-school romances central to this sequel due to JAKE's separation from HAMILTON raise an issue absent from the original drama - weekend leave policy. Rawley's numerical limitation of "free weekends" allowed boarding students is typical. Grottlesex' more liberal weekend leave policy is modeled on that of the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts; a student's busing in and out rather than being picked up and dropped off at campus by the weekend host stretches even that policy but might be possible with a liability waiver from parents.


  * A two-day weekend at both Rawley and Grottlesex is assumed, although some New England prep schools still hold classes on Saturday mornings and sports competitions on Wednesday afternoons. HAMILTON's ability in this sequel to spend two-day weekends away from Rawley during fall term is realistic given that assumption, his not being a boarding student, and crew's being ostensibly a spring-term sport at most New England prep schools. At schools serious about rowing, first-string rowers row year-round, outdoors or indoors, while nominally being third-stringers in fall- and winter-term sports. However, inter-school junior division rowing matches, often held on Saturdays at two-day-weekend schools, tend to be weekly events only during spring term. 



_Motor Vehicles_ :

  * In the original drama, various Rawley students are shown driving cars at school. In reality, all New England prep schools forbid boarding students to keep motor vehicles at school; cars are no less forbidden than motorbikes. The only exceptions are for students with physician-certified medical need or, at some schools, for fifth-year ("post-graduate") students. In this sequel, the only prep school boarding student with a car at school is RYDER, who has suborned a doctor into certifying that he needs one. - To keep a snowmobile at school, as JAKE Pratt does in this sequel, might not violate the letter of the rules of a prep school in Massachusetts, where state law does not consider snowmobiles to be motor vehicles.


  * To obtain a Maine motorcycle permit at age 15, as this sequel portrays JAKE Pratt as having done before her summer-session arrival at Rawley, was possible before 2013, when Maine raised its minimum age for motorcycling to 16. Given that it is not unusual for affluent New Yorkers to own vacation homes in Maine, and that there is a Pratt Farm, once tilled by Pratts, on the Kennebec River, adding another anachronism seems better than the alternatives, namely: either to make one of the already anomalously old Rawley first-years even older; or to root JAKE in one of the few states (Alabama, Texas), culturally and geographically remote from JAKE's Manhattan home, that still permit 15-year-olds to still drive motorcycles; or to imagine JAKE as driving with no legal permit whatsoever, which would make MONICA a hopelessly irresponsible mother and HAMILTON an equally irresponsible boyfriend.



_Clothing_ : In the original drama, except at a black-tie dance, Rawley boys dress grubbily, in clothes strikingly unlike those commonly worn by preppies either at school or when summering on the Vineyard or in the Hamptons. That costuming clashes with the sets for the interior of Rawley Boys’, which faithfully replicate the ambiance of an elite New England prep school or university. This sequel imagines that the low sartorial tone of Rawley's summer session is set by its guest students from public (state) schools. In this sequel the usual cold-weather clothing of most Rawley students of both genders is a typically preppy mix of rumpled dress and casual clothing, grudgingly compliant with school dress codes: blazers and tweed sport jackets, dress sweaters, dress shirts or blouses, woolen slacks or pleated skirts are combined with turtlenecks, flannel shirts and scarves, outlandish sweaters, corduroys or brushed denims, plaid socks or no socks. Blacks, navy blues, grays and plaids predominate. Among the boys, tassel loafers, worn with plaid or brightly striped socks, or no visible socks notwithstanding the season, are ubiquitous. For Thanksgiving dinner, the attire is more subdued and less casual; for work, such as shoveling, casually pragmatic, _i.e._ , denim jeans. In some scenes, the bilious pink-and-lime-green summer and leisure wear for which preppies are notorious make an appearance. 

In sum, this sequel is less concerned than the original drama not to seem alien to those unfamiliar with New England prep schools, and more concerned not to disconcert those familiar with them. Although this sequel is no less unrealistic than the original _Young Americans_ , its lack of realism is more exclusively reserved for the surrealism by which the original drama expresses its moral idealism. 

*       *       *


	7. Setting:  The Flemings' House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Description a building at which multiple scenes of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , are set.

**Setting: The Flemings' House**

Many scenes of this sequel are set on the ground floor or exterior of a building often referred to but never depicted in the original drama: the Dean’s Residence of Rawley Academy, home of DEAN Steven Fleming, his wife KATE, and his son HAMILTON, who, although attending Rawley, lives with his parents.

_Exterior_ : The Dean’s Residence is a two-story Federal-style house, extended in the back: white clapboard, green shutters, two symmetrically placed interior chimneys, and two windows on each side of the front door. A covered front porch spanning the width of the house has been added; it is furnished with Adirondack chairs and barrel-top tables. The exterior looks a bit like this:

(That’s “The Farm by the River,” an inn in North Conway, New Hampshire.) A straight driveway to the right of the house leads to a detached garage. A white picket fence encloses the back yard, much of which is given to a flower garden; a walkway from the driveway to the back door pierces it under a trellis arch. The front yard is unfenced. A low holly hedge surrounds the front porch, parting for the entryway. Mature oaks and maples arch over the driveway and the street in front of the house. In token of the season, three diversely colored ears of maize, bound together, hang on the front door.

_Interior, ground floor_ : A broad central hallway runs the length of the house, from a checkerboard-tile-floored front vestibule with rows of coat pegs, to a similarly-tiled rear vestibule largely given over to a large dog bed, a water bowl and three dog food bowls. The central-left part of the hallway is filled by a staircase, hardwood-planked with unpainted wood handrail and banisters and brown oriental-pattern runner, leading upstairs (and, beneath it, stairs to the cellar). To the right (as one enters) at the front is a large formal dining room, behind it the kitchen, and behind that both a restroom, opening only onto the hallway, and the family dining area, facing the back yard. To the left at the front is a large parlor, behind that a library, behind that the family living room, facing the back yard. All rooms save the library open onto the central hallway – the parlor and formal dining room via broad double-doors – as well as connecting with the adjacent room(s). One chimney serves fireplaces in the dining room and kitchen; another serves fireplaces in the parlor and library. The ceilings are high. All floors are hardwood, save in the vestibules and kitchen. All interior spaces are wainscoted with beadboard – of unpainted dark wood in the rooms on the left side of the house, painted white in the rooms on the right side and in the central hallway and staircase. The upper walls are painted, not papered, save for ceiling borders beneath the ceiling molding. Each room has inconspicuous corner speakers wired to a CD player in the library, with local volume control in each room. This being the USA, interior doors usually are left open.

  * _Kitchen_ : Large, well-designed, with a built-in central “island” – the most modern room in the house, although an open hearth remains. Floored with the same checkerboard tiles as the vestibules. Doors connect to the formal dining room, the family dining room, and the hallway. The hearth is to the left as one enters from the formal dining room. Facing it, against the wall adjoining the hallway, to the right of the door as one enters from the hallway, is an enclosed eating booth made of dark-stained wood, backed by high dark-stained wooded half-wall. Four can sit comfortably in the booth.


  * _Family dining room_ : A large three-paneled bay window is set into the back wall, affording a full view of the back yard and garden. A single window is set in the wall facing the driveway. The door connecting to the kitchen is near the inner end of the wall separating the two rooms. The extendable trestle table, which can seat either four or six, the six low comb-back chairs, and the sideboard along the wall adjoining the kitchen, are of light-finished oak. A large mirror over the sideboard renders the back yard and garden visible from all sides of the table, and fills the room with light. When the table is not extended, the two extra chairs flank the sideboard.


  * _Parlor_ : A large, uncarpeted room used chiefly for standing receptions, not for sitting. Dominated by a baby grand piano, otherwise sparsely and formally furnished. Two large potted plants occupy the front corners. A long narrow table is set against the wall adjoining the hallway.


  * _Formal dining room_ : The table, a dark-finished extendable trestle, can seat as many as sixteen or contract to as few as ten places. The chairs are black-finished high comb-backs in the old New England style, with the Rawley crest on their headboards; the two at the ends of the table have armrests. A long, low, simple dark-finished sideboard stands on the window side of the room. Two small round tables stand in the front corners of the room; when, as is normal, the table is not extended, they and the sideboard are flanked by extra chairs.


  * _Library_ : The interior walls are lined with inset bookshelves. The CD player is on a low shelf on the wall adjoining the hallway. Two mission-style oak sofas, upholstered in dark red leather, are set perpendicular to the hearth, a rectangular mission-style oak coffee table between them. Two black-finished New-England-style comb-back rocking chairs, flanking a small round black-finished table, are set on a braided oval rug, facing the coffee table and hearth. Along the back wall are the Dean’s desk, to the window side of the door connecting to the family living room, and, on the other side of the door, two black-finished New-England-style comb-back arm chairs, flanking a second small round black-finished table. In front of the desk, near the front wall on the window side, is a black-finished wooden card table, with four more New-England-style comb-back chairs without armrests. The headboards of the comb-back chairs all display the Rawley crest.


  * _Family living room_ : Two windows are set on the back wall, one on the side wall. On the side of the room farther from the hallway, a television abuts the wall adjoining the library, with a cloth-upholstered two-seat sofa opposite it and matching armchair under the side window; the sofa and chair share an end table and coffee table. In the center of the room is an oval braided throw-rug. Across the doorway connecting to the library, on the inner side of the room, two black Rawley-crested comb-back chairs flanking a small round table abut the wall adjoining the library; set against the back wall under the window, across the doorway connecting to the hallway, is a writing table flanked by two more such comb-back chairs.



*       *       *


	8. Setting:  Finn's Suite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes a location in which multiples scenes of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , are set.

**Setting:  Finn's Suite**

The second-floor suite, of which only FINN’s bedroom is shown in the original drama (episode 4), lies on the back side of the back-protruding wing of the boys’ dorm further from the lake. It is centered on a narrow hallway that runs parallel to the corridor that gives access to the suite. At one end of the hallway is a bathroom, at the other end the door to a long narrow adjoining room extending from the corridor to the exterior wall. On the inner side of the hallway are a living room, and, nearer the bathroom, a study/guestroom with a sleeper-sofa. On the outer side of the hallway are a bedroom, opposite the study/guestroom, and, opposite the living room, a kitchen and dining area. No wall separates either the living room or the dining area from the hallway, and a large “pass through” pierces most of the wall between the kitchen and dining area, making all three rooms part of a single large space. A large arched triple-pane window like that in SCOUT’s and WILL’s dorm room, but fully transparent, gives light to the dining area and living room, and offers a view of the garden, the lake in the background. In the living room are the door to the wing corridor and, in the wall shared with the adjoining room, a fireplace which, unlike those in the boys’ dorm rooms, has not been bricked up and remains functional. Save for the checkerboard-tile-floored kitchen and bathroom, the floors, as in the rest of the building, are hardwood. Save for the living room, kitchen and bathroom, the walls are painted blue-grey with a medium-tone unpainted wood chair rail, as in the building’s dorm rooms.

The living room is wainscoted with unpainted medium-tone wood paneling below the chair rail, and painted blue-grey above save on the wall adjoining the study, which has unpainted medium-tone wooden bookshelves built-in above the chair rail. In the inner wall, adjoining the school corridor, the door is set off-center, nearer the study; several feet above the chair rail, a medium-tone wood board of coat-pegs lines the wall from the medium-tone wooden door threshold to the built-in bookcases.

Along the wall adjoining the study is a long table, on which FINN’s books-and-papers clutter is concentrated, leaving the rest of the room tidy; a high black-finished comb-back chair, no armrests, Rawley crest on the headboard, is set at each end. The half of the living room nearer the fireplace is mostly covered by a large, mostly dark-reddish Afghan carpet. On it, as in the library of the Dean’s residence, two mission-style oak sofas, upholstered in dark red leather, are set perpendicular to the hearth, a rectangular mission-style oak coffee table between them, and two black-finished New-England-style comb-back rocking chairs, with Rawley crests on the headboards, flanking a small round black-finished table, face the coffee table and hearth. Two more high black-finished Rawley-crested comb-back chairs, with armrests, flank another small round black-finished table along the corridor wall between the door and the wall containing the fireplace. In the dining area are a table, six chairs, and a sideboard identical to those in the family dining room of the Dean’s residence. However, the wall hangings, unlike the furniture, are personal property: mostly foreign, some exotic, reflecting Finn’s travels and interest in history.

*       *       *


	9. Dramatis personae:  Major characters, in order of appearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes the major characters of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.
> 
> Links are to photographs of actors who played the characters in the original drama.

**_Dramatis personae_ :  Major characters in order of appearance**

[GROUNDSKEEPER (Brian Haggerty](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EL98t0EqJfQ/U0p5clW0qSI/AAAAAAAAAOY/pmVc2R80lyM/w450-h339-no/Groundskeeper+Delaney+Williams+as+Falstaff%252C+Foger+2008.jpg) - Played in  _Young Americans_  by Delaney Williams.) - The groundskeeper of Rawley Academy. Middle-aged, lives with his wife, the Rawley dining hall manager, in a suite in the basement of the central building of the boys’ school, adjoining the storeroom. Heavy-set, rugged, unattractive. Fond of teen TV romances. A “common man,” previously employed in Bolt’s _A Man for All Seasons_. Has no name in the original drama. Since he and FINN seem to be the only adults living on campus, and FINN is single, Haggerty’s marital status and surname are inferred from an unidentified “Mrs. Haggerty” whose bicycle seems to be at Rawley Boys’ late on the evening of the summer cotillion in the original drama. 

[SCOUT Calhoun](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EMMn8bvSOqU/U0p7-kI-RCI/AAAAAAAAATs/pxYNBy7ayZE/w512-h384-no/Scout+Calhoun+%2528Mark+Famiglietti%2529+YA1.jpg) (Played in  _Young Americans_  by Mark Famiglietti.) - First-year student at Rawley Academy. Hails from a family that has attended and given generously to Rawley for generations. Eldest child of a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. A natural-born politician in the best sense. Handsome and charming in a way redolent of the Kennedys. Athletic, rows “six” on the junior-division boys’ crew. Trying to recover emotionally from a frustrated summer romance with BELLA Banks. A close and nurturing friend to WILL Krudski. Like WILL, SCOUT works a few shifts a week at a Friendly’s diner, across New Rawley’s main street from CHARLIE Bank’s gas station. – The childhood friendship between SCOUT and HAMILTON Fleming described in this sequel is absent from but arguably consistent with the original drama, in which their non-acquaintance prior to SCOUT’s enrollment at Rawley seems incredible.

[WILL Krudski](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RjLhiaXWM5Y/U0p8PpvP6pI/AAAAAAAAAT0/2yNrjr0aEqE/w512-h384-no/Will+Krudski+%2528Rodney+Scott%2529+YA1.jpg) (Played in  _Young Americans_  by Rodney Scott.) - First-year student at Rawley. SCOUT Calhoun’s roommate. A native of New Rawley. An only child. Attends Rawley Academy on a full scholarship. Brilliant, well-read, a future writer. Narrator of the original drama. His moral earnestness has impelled him, as a mature man, to dream up Rawley and to go back to school there for the purpose of learning to exceed the youthful expectations that he has fulfilled, above all to love more truly. Relatively poor, in time and hence (of symbolic necessity) in money, as are all the drama’s “townies,” none of whom seems unambiguously young. Amply attractive and athletic, rows “seven” on the junior-division boys’ crew.

[HAMILTON Fleming](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2n0eounMhL4/U0p_DbLg0II/AAAAAAAAA1c/zBrXkIluzV0/w512-h384-no/Hamilton+Fleming+%2528Ian+Somerhalder%2529+YA1.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Ian Somerhalder.) - First-year student at Rawley. Only child of DEAN Steven Fleming and art teacher KATE Fleming. Lives with his parents in the Dean’s residence near the campus. Scion of old-money WASP families long given to scholarship and the arts. An amateur photographer. Passionately but calculatingly compassionate, he exemplifies “true love” and personifies the school that WILL Krudski has dreamt up to teach it. Athletic, “stroke” of the junior-division boys’ crew, [an Adonis](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D5om291W2-s/U0GuRttbEfI/AAAAAAAAAak/Dh5NG1sJCOw/w319-h397-no/SomerhalderBrower+2000-08.jpg). Truly loves ‘JAKE’ Pratt, whose courage and emotional neediness led him, despite being straight and wanting desperately not to be gay, to fall for her while believing her to be a boy.

[MARK Johnson](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6lIKauXYOSM/U1Dgryz0f-I/AAAAAAAAAZ8/YYAQOg98rW8/w335-h251-no/Mark+%2528aka+Harry%2529+Johnson+%2528Jason+Sweets%2529%252C+YA3.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Jason Sweet.) - First-year student at Rawley. Intellectually curious, emotionally open, perceptive, empathetic, playful. Thin, angular, but attractive. ANNE Crompton’s boyfriend. A minor character called “[Harry Johnson](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-40yPXgDz-XQ/U0p7lNufBdI/AAAAAAAAAYA/LwWglRypLN8/w342-h431-no/Mark+Johnson+%2528Jason+Sweet%2529.jpg)” in the original drama as aired, “Mark Johnson” in the credits and script. The summer-term relationship with JAKE Pratt ascribed to him in this sequel is absent from although not inconsistent with the original drama, which arguably suffers from a lack of any character privy to or affected by the drama’s JAKE-HAMILTON “true love” story as it unfolds.

[Forrest RYDER](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WuW_CYW2aPs/U1C1usT6pyI/AAAAAAAABdQ/_nf4hXpQMyw/w334-h249-no/Ryder+%2528Charlie+Hunnam%2529%252C+YA7.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Charlie Hunnam.) - Second-year student at Rawley. From England, in the US due to his mother’s remarriage to an American, he loathes his stepfather, the U.S., and Rawley. A diabolical character with uncanny foresight, he artfully pursues malice for its own sake, focusing on WILL and HAMILTON, while claiming to be “passionately apathetic.” The only male in the drama who rivals HAMILTON in [physical beauty](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8odiETuWlAk/U0GunMnPdjI/AAAAAAAAAa0/2AGAIaJsMZg/w323-h505-no/Hunnam+2000.jpg). In the original drama, he is called simply “RYDER,” apparently a surname, since he seems close to no one; credits diversely indicate that his full name is either “Gregor Ryder” or “Ryder Forrest.”

[FINN](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wOQSnf4TlRY/U1C3-pWCjRI/AAAAAAAABzs/JhUGd4u1I3Q/w333-h260-no/Finn+%2528Ed+Quinn%2529%252C+YA1.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Ed Quinn.) - Teacher of literature and history, and coach of boys’ crew, at Rawley. Single, lives in a suite in the boys’ school dorm, serving as housemaster. In his late thirties. A native of New Rawley, attended Rawley, then Harvard, on scholarships. A prol with a taste for Shakespeare. [Symbolically a creature of Lake Rawley](https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/102949842470779984078/photos/102949842470779984078/albums/6003463619491809761/6003502407939402082?pageid=102949842470779984078&pid=6003502407939402082&oid=102949842470779984078.jpg), our cultural and moral heritage, which he loves but understands imperfectly. Ruggedly handsome, athletic, and still growing emotionally, morally, and intellectually. Briefly indulged, with imperfect discretion, a now-repented fancy for KATE Fleming. A surrogate father to WILL Krudski. As in the original drama, this character has only one name.

[JAKE (a.k.a. Jacqueline) Pratt](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sTGbwGJMUuI/U0GY_d0W0YI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/SKwUxobloBI/w400-h300-no/Most+remarkable+girl.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Katherine Moennig.) - First-year girl at the Grottlesex School. Raised in Manhattan. Fatherless only daughter of an accomplished Broadway actress. Acerbically witty, emotionally intense, apparently fearless. Physically tense, lithe, fit, svelte, sexually exciting although not classically beautiful – [able to pass as a boy](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KlgnK6soLa8/U0Gu9QcB-5I/AAAAAAAAAbE/pTD_jvvI3kQ/w401-h500-no/Moennig+in+Atlanta.jpg) in corset and baggy clothes. Truly loved by HAMILTON Fleming, who visits her at Grottlesex on weekends, she is recovering from despair of love and related compulsively self-destructive behaviors. Although heterosexual, JAKE attended Rawley Boys’ in drag and coxed junior-division boys’ crew during summer session. HAMILTON, SCOUT, WILL, BELLA Banks, SEAN McGrail and, in this sequel, MARK, are the only people in New Rawley to whom she has revealed her true gender. She has not returned to Rawley since the last day of summer session, when caught showering with HAMILTON by FINN.

[CHARLIE Banks](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-IJbkhmlibds/U0p5wHoKP5I/AAAAAAAAAUE/hmVqKwacHTU/w512-h384-no/Charlie+Banks+%2528Ed+Fry%2529+YA1.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Ed Fry.) - GRACE’s father, BELLA’s stepfather. Divorced from a wife who abandoned him and her children a decade ago to run off with another man. Raising her two daughters alone, he runs and lives above a full-service filling station, owned by his former wife, in New Rawley. In his late thirties, ruggedly attractive. Intelligent, but lacks a post-secondary education. His longstanding attraction to SUSAN Krudski, expressed chiefly by kindness to WILL, is absent from but consistent with the original drama.

[DEAN Steven Fleming](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ewVtyWRsBxk/U1DfMicdXUI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/DvRmcj-4SjA/w335-h251-no/Dean+Steven+Fleming+%2528Mark+J.+Nichols%2529%252C+YA3.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Mark J. Nichols.) - Dean of Rawley Academy. HAMILTON’s father. In his forties. Quick-witted, with a forceful personality. Fit, lean, amply attractive. A recovering workaholic, he has recently fallen in love again with his wife, KATE, and begun to use his authority with aggressive compassion.

[KATE Fleming](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j7hSorW7ajA/U1C0ayfpi_I/AAAAAAAABcg/yokl3rDRC60/w334-h249-no/Kate+Fleming%252C+YA7.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Kathleen Bridget Kelly.) - Art teacher at Rawley Academy. Wife of the DEAN, mother of HAMILTON. In her early forties. Blond, spry, cheerful. Like the DEAN, she has recently developed a keener appreciation of her spouse, of love, and of life generally.

[BELLA Banks](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AXvIXRyk3_E/U0qYORa-hiI/AAAAAAAAA6g/d3jFGG2IftU/w410-h307-no/Bella+Banks+%2528Kate+Bosworth%2529+YA1.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Kate Bosworth.) - Freshman at Edmund High in New Rawley. Lives with CHARLIE Banks, the former husband of her mother, above his gas station, where she works part-time. Blond, buxom, [classically beautiful](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Bvs-fe_5GYM/U1CudbSUGLI/AAAAAAAABY0/X2_rFcOUfOs/w333-h245-no/Bella+in+bikini%252C+YA7.jpg). Extremely bright, well-read, keenly perceptive and intuitive, deeply empathetic, spontaneously helpful, but emotionally scarred. Abandoned by her mother age the age of six, raised by CHARLIE, she remains traumatized, clinging to the security of CHARLIE and his gas station, unwilling to rise to her potential. Attracted to and briefly involved during the summer with SCOUT Calhoun, but told by CHARLIE that she was fathered by SCOUT’s father, she was unwilling to investigate the veracity of that allegation, instead taking up with SEAN McGrail. A close friend of JAKE Pratt, whose cross-dressing did not fool her, and of WILL Krudski, who helped her though the loss of her mother.

[SEAN McGrail](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-IHaIvQ4rljQ/U1CyEzdn7lI/AAAAAAAABa4/wp2u_H4M8hs/w335-h250-no/Sean+McGrail+%2528Matt+Czuchry%2529%252C+YA7.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Matt Czuchry.) - Freshman at Edmund High. A natural [all-round athlete](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qfNNRzQQtZA/U1CystPAnlI/AAAAAAAABbg/eNS--BV9Er8/w334-h251-no/Sean+McGrail+%2528Matt+Czuchry%2529+2%252C+YA7.jpg). No dummy although not a scholar. Hot-headed, but capable both of thoughtful and selfless kindness and of unstinting emotional supportiveness. A friend of WILL Krudski since elementary school. Involved romantically with BELLA Banks during the summer, after CHARLIE’s allegation that SCOUT and BELLA had the same father.

[GRACE Banks](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SbX8LcCVaAA/U1CzcpfzeiI/AAAAAAAABcE/0bvtJhALUWA/w334-h251-no/Grace+Banks+%2528Gabrielle+Christian%2529.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Gabrielle Christian.) - [BELLA’s half-sister](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-q2x_w8PVsTI/U0p6N0jykeI/AAAAAAAAAUk/c-gd5FC6QGI/w354-h543-no/Grace+Banks+%2528Gabrielle+Christian%2529.jpg), a year and a half younger than BELLA. Attends eighth grade at New Rawley’s middle school. Lives with her father, CHARLIE, and works part-time at his gas station. Abandoned by her mother at an even young age than BELLA, she was even more traumatized. Given to drinking to excess and chasing older boys until summer’s end, when her mother threatened to deprive her, CHARLIE and BELLA of their home and livelihood by selling the gas station, she has since become less irresponsible. (* _Note_ : GRACE briefly appears without speaking in Act I, scene 11; her position in this list is based on her first speaking appearance in I/15.)

[LENA Rosenfeld](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NgosFZ1BX28/U0p7LvIZLfI/AAAAAAAAAUs/J94Mhr7iRYQ/w512-h384-no/Lena+%2528Naomi+Kline%2529+YA3.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Naomi Kline.) - First-year student at Rawley. From Los Angeles. Physically soft, full, and lush. Bright, exceptionally compassionate and intuitive. Boldly uninhibited, confident and resilient upon arriving at Rawley during the summer, she was attracted to JAKE, whom LENA took to be a boy, and who at first led LENA on to make HAMILTON jealous but ultimately had to spurn her. LENA nevertheless helped HAMILTON and JAKE get together after concluding (wrongly) that they were gay and (rightly) that they were in love. No surname for LENA is given in the original drama.

ANNE Crompton – First-year student at Grottlesex. From old Northern California money. Brilliant, passionate, loyal. Auburn-haired, slender, athletic, sharp-featured but enticing. JAKE’s closest friend at Grottlesex and JAKE's roommate since late September. Rows stroke in the Grottlesex junior division crew coxed by JAKE. Not in the original drama.

[MONICA Pratt](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LmqxsxdFWHg/U1Cy4oDqqrI/AAAAAAAABbs/4VW8dV2Dvig/w336-h251-no/Monica+Pratt.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Laura Sheaks.) - An accomplished stage and film actress, noted for Shakespearean roles. Based in Manhattan, but often works in Europe or Los Angeles. Multilingual. Nearly forty, [amply attractive](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-gl_o-KTQmr0/U0p677FiJ3I/AAAAAAAAAU0/tjJyeSKstM4/w300-h296-no/Monica+Pratt+%2528Laura+Sheaks%2529.jpg), coyly witty, flirtatious. Raising her daughter, Jacqueline (a.k.a. JAKE), alone; nothing is known of JAKE’s father save that she “doesn’t have one.” Apparently despairing of any love beyond mere sex, MONICA has affected sex-kitten mannerisms, living a gender-stereotype role. JAKE’s reaction against that has made MONICA feel that JAKE doesn’t want her mother in her life, leading MONICA to distance herself from her daughter physically and emotionally, thereby causing JAKE to feel unloved and unlovable.

*       *       *


	10. Dramatis personae:  Other characters, in order of appearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes characters other than major characters of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.

**_Dramatis personnae_ :  Other characters, in order of appearance**

KYLE Stratton (Played in _Young Americans_ by an actor not known to be credited.) - Second-year student at Rawley Boys’. Discourteous, arrogant, insecure. New money, his family’s fortune rests on an overvalued info-tech enterprise.

[BRANDON Bradshaw](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Lnqwn_0044E/U1De_SrBKtI/AAAAAAAAAaE/5jYikg-LVCI/w334-h251-no/Brandon+%2528John+Driscoll%2529%252C+YA4.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by John Driscoll.) - First-year student at Rawley. Tall, with a physique suited to his role as a lineman on the junior division American football team, moderately attractive face. Not the sharpest or the most sensitive tool in the shed, but a decent guy. MARK Johnson’s roommate, no steady girlfriend. No surname is given in the original drama.

STEWART Prescott – First-year student at Rawley. Moderate height, athletic, handsome. Empathetic, often insightful or witty. Running back on the junior division American football team. Boyfriend-in-waiting to BROOKE. A close friend of BRANDON. Attended Rawley during summer session, but was not in the original drama (save, perhaps, as an extra).

[SUSAN Krudski](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sDJcYL3uH4Q/U1C0-zT9TKI/AAAAAAAABc0/0nynB7gzS4Y/w333-h251-no/Susan+Krudski+%2528Deborah+Hazlett%2529%252C+YA1.jpg) (Played in _Young Americans_ by Deborah Hazlett.) - WILL Krudski’s mother. Lives in New Rawley, runs a beauty parlor. In her late thirties. Kind, intuitive, longsuffering, [attractive](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-hgkkdF-uTtk/U0p8zeAG2rI/AAAAAAAAAU8/NADeUqvR3vs/w301-h199-p-no/Susan+Krudski+%2528Deborah+Hazlett%2529.jpg). Unhappily married to a personification of the moral complacency that her son dreams up Rawley to kill in himself. Long attracted to CHARLIE Banks, she expresses it chiefly by serving as a surrogate mother for his daughters, BELLA and GRACE.

MARY McGrail – SEAN McGrail’s mother. President of the Parent-Teacher Association of Edmund High, the public (state) high school of New Rawley. Energetic, attractive, devoted to her children and her town. Not in the original drama.

JENKINS – Owner-operator of a general store and gas station in Grottlesex. Similar in appearance to Rawley’s GROUNDSKEEPER, and preferably played by the same actor. Not in the original drama.

JENNIFER Langtree – First-year student at Edmund High. Works part-time at the New Rawley Inn. Smart, perceptive, kind, and pretty. A close friend of WILL and BELLA. Not in the original drama.

CLERK – Develops photographs at a drugstore (chemist’s shop) in New Rawley. Preferably played by the same actor who plays the GROUNDSKEEPER and JENKINS. Not in the original drama.

MARGARET Fitzpatrick – DEAN Fleming’s secretary. Efficient but maternal, in her sixties. Not in the original drama.

LIZ Johnson – First-year student at Rawley. MARK’s twin sister. Thin and angular but attractive, like MARK, whom she resembles in appearance and manner. Casually involved with SCOUT during October and early November. Attended Rawley’s summer session, but was not in the original drama (save, perhaps, as an extra).

BROOKE Sumner – First-year student at Rawley. LIZ’s roommate and emotional lifeline. Committed to take up with STEWART when LIZ no longer needs her support. Attended Rawley’s summer session, but was not in the original drama (save, perhaps, as an extra).

WENDY Darling – Second-year student at Rawley. From Neverland, still looking for lost boys who need imaginative mothering. A gifted baker, skilled in the uses of pixie dust. Remarkably patient, she solicits contributions to the school paper. Not in the original drama; apologies to James Barrie.

SUSAN Pevensie – Second-year student at Rawley. From Narnia, she is, in her teens, as Aslan intimated, more interested in boys than in the Eschaton. Meticulous and thorough, in play as in work, she copy-edits and proofreads for the school paper. Not in the original drama; apologies to C.S. Lewis.

ALICE Liddell – Fourth-year student at Rawley. Rooms with JAN, her closest friend, and with DOROTHY and NANCY. Hails from Wonderland, now older but still insatiably curious. A skilled manipulator of spreadsheets, she handles the business accounts of the school paper. Not in the original drama; apologies to Lewis Carroll.

DOROTHY Gale – Third-year student at Rawley. From Oz, still inclined to stray off the yellow brick road to get to know interesting guys, but no longer keen on returning to Kansas. Does research and fact-checking for the school paper. Not in the original drama; apologies to Frank Baum.

JAN Pierce – Fourth-year student at Rawley. Editor-in-chief and layout editor of the school paper. A natural leader, highly competent. Her newspaper staff consists mostly of girls, and are somewhat under-supervised, due in part to the DEAN’s romantic idealism. All of them, like JAN, are attractive, athletic, and have a news-hound’s nose for deception and for a good story. Not in the original drama.

NANCY Hofstadter – Third-year student at Rawley. Printing specialist for the school paper. Keenly appreciative of diverse classical music for recreational uses. Not in the original drama.

TOM Phillips– Third-year student at Rawley. Math whiz, lacrosse player. NANCY’s boyfriend. Not in the original drama.

MATT Townsend – Third-year student at Rosemary Choate Hall, a (real) prep school in Connecticut. Lacrosse player. DOROTHY’s boyfriend. Not in the original drama.

FRED Newhouse – Freshman at the College of William and Mary, in Virginia. Like STEVE, he graduated the previous spring from Rawley. JAN’s boyfriend. Not in the original drama.

STEVE Appleton– FRED’s roommate and rowing crewmate at William and Mary and, previously, at Rawley. ALICE’s boyfriend. Not in the original drama.

 

_Minor parts with speaking lines_ :

First boy, first-year Latin class, I/3 and 1/5 (attended a public [state] middle school, unnamed)

Second boy, first-year Latin-class, I/3 and I/5 (attended a private middle school, unnamed)

First customer, beauty salon, I/4 (Harriet)

Hairdresser, beauty salon, I/4 (woman, unnamed)

Second customer, beauty salon, I/4 (Madge)

Three knitters, fourth-year students at Rawley Girls’, fairy tale reading, I/17 and I/19 (unnamed)

Third-year girl, at poetry reading II/12 (unnamed)

Three boy students, receiving Thanksgiving dinner assignments, III/4 (unnamed)

First student, the Flemings’ Thanksgiving dinner, III/6 and III/7 (boy, unnamed)

Second student, the Flemings’ Thanksgiving dinner, III/6 (boy, unnamed)

 

_Extras required_ : 200, all but roughly a dozen play prep school students.

 

_Animals_ : three golden retrievers (ubiquitous in the original drama).

 

_Voice-only character_ : JOHN Calhoun. (Played in _Young Americans_ by Beau Gravitte) - Father of SCOUT, Rawley alumnus, U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Talks in “Locust Valley lockjaw,” the Yankee patrician accent. Falsely believed by CHARLIE to have fathered BELLA. His role as Chairman of the Rawley Board of Trustees, and his close friendship with DEAN Steven Fleming, are absent from but consistent with the original drama.

 

_Major character never seen nor heard_ : Dr. HOTCHKISS. Elderly teacher at Rawley, now semi-retired, teaching only Latin. A close friend of HAMILTON’s deceased paternal grandfather, he is HAMILTON’s (fairy) godfather. Not in the original drama.

 

_“Casting” note_ : In the original drama the secondary school characters look (because they were played by actors who were) several years older than their ostensible ages. In this sequel, they still look that way. Pimples are miraculously absent. _Young Americans_ is a dream of an ideal youth, surreal in its disdain for realism.

*       *       *


	11. Genre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes the genre of the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.

**Genre**

This sequel is an attempt to mix two genres that are seldom combined. It attempts to be both a dramatic sequel to and a critical appreciation of the deeply and deliberately ambiguous original drama. There is a dramatic cost: the sequel is wordier and slower than the original drama. The original drama’s aesthetic manifesto, “My love she speaks like silence,” is abandoned in being explicated.

The original drama’s ambiguous ending flows from its core ambiguity – the character of HAMILTON Fleming. The ambiguity of HAMILTON’s character can be resolved only by what he intends to do after the end of the original drama, so any sequel has strong implications for HAMILTON’s character in the original drama. JAKE’s pretending to be a boy harms herself and others. If HAMILTON plans to let JAKE continue her gender deception any longer than necessary, then he’s a jerk, not an embodiment of “true love.” But to stop cross-dressing, JAKE must leave Rawley and HAMILTON. This is the main problem facing these lovers – but they never discuss it in the original drama.

When the original drama is viewed naively, HAMILTON could be a jerk – willing to let JAKE continue her gender deception indefinitely in order to keep her near him. His character seems far less consistent than any other character in the original drama.

However, the original drama suggests that Rawley is perfect, an earthly paradise where dreams come true. And when the original drama is viewed with attention to its rich symbolic content, HAMILTON, the dean’s son, clearly personifies Rawley. Consequently, the original drama, viewed from an adult rather than a teen perspective, seems to imply that HAMILTON, who passes a modern version of a classic "test of true love," is as perfect an embodiment of “true love” as one could dream of. Moreover, the original drama suggests that HAMILTON is a brooding and ironic character who is not what he seems, whose words are often misleading.

To validate HAMILTON’s character requires creative explanation of his apparently jerk-like actions in the original drama. However, any sequel that fails to validate HAMILTON’s character betrays the core message of the original drama – that “true love,” in which compassion rules passion, is possible. Conversely, any drama criticism arguing for the symbolic/adult view of HAMILTON’s character in the original drama – that he embodies “true love” – must, to be credible, sketch a scenario of HAMILTON’s plans for fall term, must hypothesize at least the plot outline of a sequel. Hence the mix of genres.

That _Young Americans_ is a dream matters, because it implies that the drama’s surreal symbolism is essential, and hence that HAMILTON is, above all, a symbolic character, Rawley come to life, a personification of a paradise, of a morally perfecting rejuvenation – in short, of love. To understand the original drama requires more dreaming, ambitious dreaming, what WILL calls “dreaming dreams worthy of us” – dreaming of how HAMILTON can be what he must and should be. The challenge is to construe HAMILTON as favorably as possible by dreaming of loving better than we dream is possible – to continue and build on the dream of “true love” that is the original drama.

 

*       *       *


	12. Works, allusions to which are not fully explicit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lists works of literature, music, or art unclearly alluded to in the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.

**Works, allusions to which are not fully explicit:**

 

Henry Alford, _Come Ye Thankful People Come_   (Act I/scene 12)

Matthew Arnold, _Dover Beach_ (Arnold’s _Self-Dependence_ is discussed in episode 4 of the original drama)  (III/4, IV/10, V/16)

Jane Austen, _Sense and Sensibility_ (BELLA Banks alludes to Austen in episode 1 of the original drama)  (III/11)

Stephen Vincent Benet, _Western Star_ (on FINN’s desk in episode 3 of the original drama)  (III/4 _et seq_.)

Leonard Bernstein, _West Side Story_ (II/21)

_Bible_

\-- Genesis 3 (expulsion from paradise is the theme of the final episode of the original drama)  (IV/16, V/1)

\-- Exodus 8, 9:8-11, 16  (IV/4)

\-- Exodus 33:20  (V/1)

\-- Deuteronomy 8:3, cited by Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4  (IV/10)

\-- Joshua 10:12-14 (IV/4)

\-- 2 Samuel 19:9 (Hebrew text - Steven Antin, the creator of _Young Americans_ , is Jewish, and was raised observant.)  (V/1)

\-- Psalm 8  (II/22)

\-- Psalm 23  (V/15)

\-- Ecclesiastes 3:7  (IV/10)

\-- Song of Songs 8:6  (V/1)

\-- Malachi 4:6  (V/14)

\-- Matthew 8:26, 16:8 (IV/16)

\-- Matthew 14:31-38, Mark 6/;31-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:5-15 (In episode 2 of the original drama, Bella says, "Someone's gotta feed the masses.")  (IV/10)

\-- Matthew 18:1-4 and 19:13-14, Mark 9:33-37 and 10:13-16, Luke 9:46-48 and 18:15-17  (on little children and humility)  (I/19, V/1, V/14)

\-- Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-34 and Luke 10:25-38, citing Leviticus 19:18 and 34 and Deuteronomy 6:5; Galatians 5:14: Romans 13:8-10 (summary of the law)  (I/8, IV/19 , V/8, V/16)

\-- Luke 12:48  (II/19)

\-- Luke 15:11-32 (parable of the prodigal son)  (IV/20)

\-- 1 Corinthians 7 (III/6)

\-- 1 Corinthians 13 (II/16, V/10)

William Blake, _Milton_ (preface, a.k.a. “Jerusalem”)  (I/2, II/20; _cf_. III/6)

James Boswell, _Life of Samuel Johnson_ (I/12) _  
_

Sandro Botticelli, _Birth of Venus_ , _Three Graces_ (V/3) _  
_

Robert Browning, _Love Among the Ruins_ (read by HAMILTON Fleming in episode 4 of the original drama)  (III/19, V/10)

Antonio Canova, _Cupid & Psyche_, _Orpheus & Eurydice  _(V/10; _cf_. IV/3 and IV/19) _  
_

Lydia Maria Child, _Over the river and through the wood_ (III/7) _  
_

Arthur Conan Doyle, _A Scandal in Bohemia_ , _The Sign of the Four_ (I/12, IV/11) _  
_

Dante, _Paradisio_   (IV/2, V/3) _  
_

_De Brevitate Vitae_ (a.k.a. _Gaudeamus Igatur_ , anonymous)  (I/20, III/18)

John Donne, _Meditation XVII_ (IV/14) _  
_

Bob Dylan

\-- _Love Minus Zero/No Limit_ (first line on Finn’s blackboard in episode 1 of the original drama, final line staged in the first JAKE-HAMILTON scene in episode 1 of the original drama) (II/18, III/4, III/19, V/1, V/7, V/10, V11)

_\-- Stuck in Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again_ (V/10) _  
_

Mircea Eliade, _Myth and Reality_ (II/11) _  
_

T.S. Eliot, _East Coker_ (I/10)

Brian Elsley and Jamie Brittain, _Skins_ (U.K. teen TV drama, series 1 and 2, 2007-08)  (V/16; _cf_. II/17)

Henri Estienne, _Les Prémices_ (III/14) _  
_

Robert Frost, _Stopping by woods on a snowy evening_ (II/5, V/1), _The road not taken_   (V/4) _  
_

Joel Chandler Harris, _How Mr. Rabbit was too sharp for Mr. Fox_ (an “Uncle Remus” story)  (V/7)

Joseph Heller, _Catch_ _22_   (I/1)

Jerry Herman, _Hello, Dolly!_ (adapted from Thorton Wilder’s _The Matchmaker_ )  (IV/10)

Herodotus, _Histories_ , Book 7 (Thermopylae epitaph)  (I/2)

Homer, _Odyssey_   (I/10, II/7, III/18, V/16)

Herman Hupfeld, _As Time Goes By_ (1931, theme song of the 1942 film, _Casablanca_ , mentioned by HAMILTON in episode 4 of the original drama)  (I/8)

Jerome of Stridon, _Vulgate_ , Psalm 113:9 _ff_. (Psalm 115 in the Jewish/Protestant enumeration)  (I/5, V/16)

Ben Jonson, _To Celia_ (IV/19 ) _  
_

John Keats, _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ (II/17), _Upon first looking into Chapman’s Homer_ (IV/10) _  
_

Alfred Kinsey, _Sexual Behavior in the Human Male_ , _Sexual Behavior in the Human Female_ (I/8) _  
_

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, _My Fair Lady_ (based on G. B. Shaw’s _Pygmalion_ )  (I/11 , II/16, V/6)

Christopher Marlowe, _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_ (V/1) _  
_

Paul McCartney, _Blackbird_ ( _cf_. closing line of Dylan’s _Love Minus Zero_ , above)  (IV/10)

Herman Melville, _Moby Dick_ (I/11) _  
_

John Milton, _Paradise Lost_ , _Paradise Regained_ (IV/16) _  
_

John Newton, _Amazing Grace_ (IV/13, V/14) _  
_

Thomas Otway, _The History and Fall of Caius Marius_ (II/21)

Glen Phillips, _Duck and Cover_ (on his 2005 album, _Winter Pays For Summer_ )  (I/1)

Richard Quine, _Bell, Book and Candle_ (1958 movie shown in episode 3 of the original drama)  (III/22, IV/13 , V/15)

Walter Raleigh, _The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd_ (to which the name, “Rawley,” may allude)  (V/1)

Gene Roddenberry, _Star Trek: The Next Generation_  (II/21, IV/19)

Edmond Rostand, _Cyrano de Bergerac_ (II/10)

Tom Ruegger and Steven Spielberg, _Pinky and the Brain_ (aired on The WB network in the l990s)  (IV/4 _et seq_.)

Richard Sarafian, _Vanishing Point_ (1971 film, celebrated by a 1997 “Primal Scream” album of same title, a poster for which appears in JAKE Pratt’s dorm room in episodes 5 and 7 of the original drama)  (I/8 _et seq_.)

Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, _Breaking Up Is Hard to Do_   (IV/19)

William Shakespeare

\-- _As You Like It_ (Antin said the original drama drew on this play, but may have confused it with _Measure for Measure_.)  (I/5)

\-- _Cymbeline_   (I/1)

_\-- Hamlet_ (II/13, II/21)

_\-- Henry IV Pt. 1_ (V/16)

\-- _Henry V_ (I/2, I/8, III/1)

\-- _Measure for Measure_ (III/2).  Cited by SEAN at the gas station after the cotillion in episode 4 of the original drama.

\-- _Merchant of Venice_   (I/4, V/15, V/16)

\-- _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (II/21, II/22, V/16)

\-- _Romeo and Juliet_ (said by Steve Antin to have inspired the original drama)  (I/1, II/16 , II/18, II/21, IV/16, V/16)

\-- _Sonnet 23_ (II/16, V/7, V/10)

\-- _Tempest_ (I/1, IV/13)

\-- _Twelfth Night_ (cited by JAKE Pratt in episode 1 of the original drama; Antin said its Jake-Hamilton storyline drew on this play.)  (IV/7, V/14, V/15, V/16)

Robert Louis Stevenson, _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ (V/13)

Henry David Thoreau

\-- _Walden_ (discussed, and cited on Finn’s blackboard, in episode 3 of the original drama)  (II/17, III/4, V/16)

\-- _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ (III/4 _et seq_.)

Virgil, _Aeneid_ (I/2, I/8, IV), _Eclogues_ (III/ 20, IV/13)

Evelyn Waugh, _Brideshead Revisited: the Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder_ (to which the character name, RYDER, may allude)  (IV/4)

Andrew Lloyd Webber, _Cats_ (mentioned in episode 5 of the original drama)  (V/15)

Thornton Wilder, _Heaven’s My Destination_ , _Woman of Andros_   (Espisode 2 of the original drama is titled after Wilder's play, _Our Town_ )  (I/14, V/7)

Kevin Williamson, _Dawson’s Creek_ (for which the original drama was a summer fill-in, and in season 3, episodes 19-21 of which the character of Will Krudski appeared to promote _Young Americans_ , recounting the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in episode 20)  (I/3, IV/3)

John Winthrop, _A Model of Christian Charity_ (Antin said that the original drama came to him when he "fell in love with New England.)"  (III/6; _cf_. I/9 and II/21)

William Butler Yeats, _When you are old_ (V/13)

*       *       *


	13. Obscenity :  violence, profanity, & sexual content

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Describes violence, profanity & sex in the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Contains spoilers.**

**Obscenity : violence, profanity, & sexual content**

_Violence_ : In this sequel, violence is even more minimal than in the original drama. The only violence depicted (in Act II, scene 13) consists of arm-twisting that leaves no lasting damage. It parallels and refers to limited violence involving the same two characters in the original drama.

_Profanity_ : In this sequel, as in the original drama, profanity is minimal and anodyne. The teen characters are kinder and better-spoken than most real teens, even at an elite prep school. Ass, bastard, bitch, bloody, bonk, butt, crap, damned, dork, hell, jerk, pissed, prat, screw, sucks, tosser, twat, and wanker are the most objectionable words in this sequel.

_Sexual content_ :

The JAKE and HAMILTON story-line of _Young Americans_ is a modern version of such classic “true love” stories as “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Frog Prince,” "Gawain and Ragnell" and Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Story" – a version in which cross-dressing substitutes for magical enchantment to pose a “test of true love” that makes someone who needs love physically unattractive. Like those stories, it suggests that "true love" is possible, that compassion can rule passion even to the point of engendering it. All sexual content in this sequel is intended to explore the implications of that suggestion.

However, the original drama's "true love" story-line is also a tale of sexual confusion in that the specific form of its "test of true love" is a gender deception; the sexual confusion provides a comedic counterpoint to the story-line's serious content about the nature and power of love.

The JAKE-HAMILTON story-line was unknown to any other characters until almost the end of the original drama. In this sequel, that story becomes known to a growing number of other characters, and, ultimately, to everyone, inspiring more and more characters to act on its implication that compassion can rule passion. Specifically, it inspires characters to dare to use sex non-traditionally for the highly traditional purpose of responding compassionately to the human need to be part of a stable couple that loves each other and others well. Characters engage in diverse non-traditional sexual behaviors, including same-sex intimacy and group sex, to help one another form couples, stay together as couples, cope with and end separations, grow morally and emotionally as couples, and love well in and as couples.  They also pursue this purpose by comparable creativity in non-sexual behaviors.

In this sequel, as in the original drama, sexual confusion first increases and then decreases, climaxing at the midpoint - in this sequel, Act III, Thanksgiving Day, the only day when, as until near the end of the original drama, a straight girl cross-dresses and pretends to be a boy. In the first two acts, sexual confusion takes the form of same-sex intimacies occasioned by separations of opposite-sex couples and emotional and informational obstacles to the formation of opposite-sex couples. The cross-dressing girl's arrival and other simultaneous events initiate resolutions of these separations and obstacles. In the last two acts, sexual confusion takes the form of group sex, and same-sex intimacy occurs only in the company of opposite-sex partners.

In this sequel, as in the original drama, all sexual contact is consensual and (except for some involving RYDER, the bad guy) affectionate. Verbal description or reference to sex is generally euphemistic and anodyne. The only somewhat graphic verbal description of sex (in Act IV, scene 4) is couched as a parody of a television cartoon comedy in which the characters are mice.

This sequel, like the original drama, is set in Massachusetts, where the age of consent, save for virgins, is sixteen. No legally underage sex is depicted, since the sexually active characters are all non-virgins sixteen years old or older. Underage sex in the past is referred to.

In this sequel, as in the original drama, all characters generally prefer opposite-sex intimacy but same-sex attraction and intimacy is a theme. The original drama's "true love" story-line, in which a straight boy heals an emotionally wounded cross-dressing girl first by offering to sacrifice his sexual orientation and then by pretending to have a same-sex relationship, inspires substantial relaxation of inhibitions against same-sex intimacy. Characters become willing to engage in same-sex intimacy to cope with separations from opposite-sex partners, to help someone over the loss of an opposite-sex relationship, or to bond emotionally to support each other's opposite-sex relationships. Characters remain unwilling to engage in same-sex intimacy perceived as likely to weaken or impede the formation of opposite-sex couples. All same-sex intimacy is physically restrained, is depicted only in light foreplay or afterplay, and is verbally described only with anodyne euphemisms.

This sequel, unlike the original drama, depicts and refers to group sex. The original drama's "true love" story inspires characters to fall in love with the "true love" couple, and, through them, with other similarly affected couples, and to engage in diverse "group sex" behaviors intended directly or indirectly to help opposite-sex couples form, stay together, or cope with separation. Two pre-existing cases of two-couple groups, both growing out of prep school or university roommate bonds, are also introduced for the purpose of exploring longer-term consequences.

No character engages in any sexual intimacy without the knowledge or consent of his or her opposite-sex partner, if he or she has one. Nobody cheats, although two instances of past adult marital infidelity, both mentioned in the original drama, are referred to. The teen characters discuss the morality of non-traditional sexual behaviors before engaging in them, and repeatedly choose to refrain from them or to limit them in various ways. By helping one another and inspiring parents to help them, they make considerable progress toward creating conditions that will make their sex lives more normal, notably by ending separations and overcoming emotional or informational problems that impede commitment as couples.

In this sequel, as in the original drama, sibling incest is a theme, although it is never depicted or described. The once-intimate boy and girl separated by a false allegation that they are half-siblings in the original drama learn that the allegation is false, but do not reunite. Instead, the incest theme is developed in context of opposite-sex twins who have never been sexually intimate, but miss the total emotional sharing that they had before puberty. Their lovers help them recover that closeness without violating the incest taboo.

Although breasts are shown, genitals are always obscured by clothing, bedcovers, or water.

Female sexual climax is depicted twice, in scenes IV/4 and V/1; male sexual climax is never depicted. Sexual penetration is depicted four times: in IV/4, IV/7, V/3 and V/7. In all cases, the penetration is largely inert – when active penetrative sex starts, either it or the scene ends. Oral sex is never depicted, anal sex never even suggested. Manual sex is depicted once, showing shoulders and heads only (IV/4).

The deliberate ambiguity both of the ending of _Young Americans_ and of the character of its "true love" story's protagonist, Hamilton Fleming, duly reflects the truth that whether we can sustain "true love" is uncertain. _Young Americans_ , like all good drama, is really about us, the viewers. Its ending depends on how we respond to its core message - true love is possible, hence we should strive to exceed traditional expectations about how well we can love. In this sequel, the characters are inspired to emulate, and to support one another in emulating, Hamilton Fleming's "true love" behavior in the original drama. They deliberately, self-critically and cooperatively act on the hope that compassion can rule passion, that sex can be used to serve love, more effectively and sustainably than traditional sexual morality imagines. History warns us to expect a tragic ending to any such experiment. This sequel nevertheless offers a "happiest possible" ending, not as a matter of expectation, but consistent with the original drama's idealistic imperative to exceed expectations by dreaming dreams that are worthy of us instead of asking whether we are worthy of our dreams.

 

*       *       *


	14. Chronology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Provides a one-year-long chronological frame for the series, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Contains spoilers.**

**Chronology**

(Based on year 2000 calendar, except for moon phases)

 

January 3, Monday – Christmas break ends at Massachusetts public schools.

January 9, Sunday – Rawley Christmas break ends, winter term resumes.

March 4, Saturday – Rawley winter term ends, spring break begins.

March 19, Sunday – Rawley spring term begins.

May 27, Saturday – Rawley spring term ends.

May 28 - June 3 – Rawley alumni reunions and graduation; Fred and Steve graduate.

June 9, Friday – Hamilton and Will take exams early at Massachusetts public middle schools.

June 11, Sunday – Rawley summer session begins.

June 20, Tuesday – Spring semester ends, summer break begins at Massachusetts public schools.

June 25, Sunday – Arrival at Rawley of summer guest students (Paige), some upperclassmen (Ryder), and some first-years previously attending public schools, including a few from far-way places who, not having previously visited the school, arrive without having yet accepted their offers of admission as diploma candidates (Lena).

July 7, Friday – Rawley summer cotillion.

July 14-16 – Rawley summer session parents’ weekend and regatta.

July 29, Saturday - Bella's birthday.

August 5, Saturday – Rawley summer session ends.

August 6, Sunday – Bella and friends walk to Carson. Jake bikes to New York; Scout and Will bus there.

August 7, Monday – Scout and Will fly to St. Martin.

August 9, Wednesday – Hamilton trains to visit Jake in New York. Sean breaks up with Bella.

August 10, Thursday – Carolyn invites Bella to Martha’s Vineyard.

August 11, Friday – Hamilton levels with Jake.

August 12, Saturday – Jake starts school applications.

August 14-17 – Bella visits Carolyn on Martha’s Vineyard; Carolyn decides to spend fall term studying French in Lausanne.

August 15, Tuesday – Scout and Will meet Denise and Michèle on St. Martin.

August 25, Friday – Jake accepts admission to Grottlesex; Jake and Hamilton visit _Neue Gallerie._

August 26, Saturday – Jake phones Mark on Nantucket, asks him to cox Rawley JD boys’ crew fall term.

August 28, Monday – Hamilton and Jake mail affidavits.

August 29 – Sept. 1 – Bella visits Jake and Hamilton in New York.

August 31, Thursday – Denise and Michèle fly back to France.

September 3, Sunday – Jake and Hamilton visit Calhouns in Greenwich.

September 4, Monday – Labor Day; Will and Scout fly to New York, first of two nights at the Waldorf.

September 5, Tuesday – Fall semester begins at Edmund.

September 5-10 – Orientation week at Grottlesex; Hamilton at Grottlesex, stays with Paul and Gordon; as Ted North, he teaches Anne to row stroke.

September 6 -10 – Scout and Will stay with Calhouns in Greenwich.

September 10, Sunday – Fall term begins at Rawley and Grottlesex. Will and Bella commit.

September 12, Tuesday – Finn asks Will about Jake, Will urges him to ask Monica.

September 14, Thursday – Finn trains to New York, meets Monica, returns to Rawley, forces Will to tell him about Jake and Hamilton.

September 16-18 weekend – Hamilton, at Grottlesex, meets Anne as himself; Gordon caught in girls’ dorm, Jake and Hamilton stay with Paul and Gordon.

September 17-18 – Finn returns to New York, tells Monica what Will has told him, stays with Monica.

September 22-24 weekend – Hamilton at Grottlesex, Jake and Hamilton stay with Paul and Gordon.

September 24, Sunday – Scout and Will bus to visit Jake and Hamilton at Grottlesex for first time, bus back to New Rawley with Hamilton in the evening.

September 26, Tuesday – Jake's birthday.

September 27, Wednesday – Mark phones Jake, Jake invites Mark to Grottlesex.

September 28, Thursday - Jake and Anne chase off Sally, Anne and Sally switch rooms.

September 29 - October 1 weekend – Mark goes to Grottlesex, meets Anne. Monica visits Grottlesex. Hamilton’s date with Bella.

October 6-8 – Columbus Day weekend. Mark and Hamilton at Grottlesex. Scout’s first date with Liz. Fred and Steve visit Rawley, meet Will and Bella; Bella suggests an arrangement.

October 11-15 – Long fall term parents’ weekend at Rawley and Grottlesex; Anne’s parents visit New Rawley Saturday and Sunday; Hamilton buses to Grottlesex on Saturday; John Calhoun and Mark’s parents in New Rawley; Monica at Grottlesex.

October 20, Friday – Hamilton and Mark overnight at the Flemings’ house in Boston.

October 21, Saturday – Head of the Charles regatta in Boston, Rawley JD boys’ crew attends to watch; Bella buses to Grottlesex for the day, Hamilton in the evening; Anne buses back to New Rawley with Bella Saturday evening.

October 27-29 – Homecoming weekend at Rawley; Hamilton at Grottlesex, Anne in New Rawley; John Calhoun in New Rawley.

October 27, Friday – Anne, as Lydia Bancroft, goes to Rawley Homecoming dance, meets Scout, Will, and Liz.

October 28, Saturday – Scout, lunching at the New Rawley Inn with his father, sees Mark with Anne.

October 29, Sunday - Scout and Will bus to Grottlesex for day to visit Hamilton and Jake for the second time, bus back to New Rawley with Hamilton in the evening. Mark sleeps over with Hamilton for the first time.

October 31, Tuesday – Halloween: Mark and Liz limo to Salem; Will stays with Sean; Hamilton stays with Scout; Hamilton and Scout install gas globes at Charlie’s service station.

November 2, Thursday – Will’s birthday. Activation of his arrangement with Jan, Alice and Josh.

November 3-5 – Homecoming weekend at Grottlesex, Hamilton and Mark both at Grottlesex for the second time.

November 7, Tuesday – Election Day; John Calhoun re-elected; Liz breaks up with Scout.

November 8, Wednesday – Kate asks Finn for advice about Hamilton.

November 9, Thursday – Finn gets Will to tell Hamilton’s parents about Jake and Hamilton, then tells them about Monica and him, and about Mark and Anne.

November 10, Friday – Veterans’ Day holiday at Edmund, Bella buses to Grottlesex for day.

November 10-12 weekend – Hamilton at Grottlesex. Anne in New Rawley; Will sees Mark and Anne visiting Bella

November 11-12 – Steven Fleming visits John Calhoun in Greenwich; Finn takes Kate to meet Monica in New York

November 12, Sunday – Scout and Will bus to Grottlesex to visit Jake and Hamilton for the third time; Mark sleeps over with Hamilton for the second time.

November 13, Monday – Kate invites Jake for Thanksgiving.

November 16-17 and 20-21 – Fall term exams at Rawley and Grottlesex.

November 17-19 weekend – Hamilton at Grottlesex, Anne in New Rawley. Scout sees Mark and Anne visiting Bella, asks Bella who Anne is; Bella tells Anne that he has inquired. Monica and Finn meet the Dean and Kate at Carson

November 19, Sunday – Mark sleeps over with Hamilton for the third time.

November 20, Monday - Blizzard hits New England in the evening. Prep school administrators decide to shorten Thanksgiving break, extend Christmas break.

November 22, Wednesday – Thanksgiving break starts at Rawley, Grottlesex and Edmund.

November 23, Thursday – Thanksgiving Day.

November 26, Sunday – Shortened Thanksgiving break ends, winter term starts, at Rawley and Grottlesex.

November 27, Monday – Fall semester resumes as scheduled at Edmund.

December 3, Sunday – Originally scheduled date for end of Thanksgiving break at Rawley and Grottlesex.

December 16, Saturday – Christmas break starts at Rawley, Grottlesex and Edmund.

 

*       *       *


End file.
